There was 6 of us diving out of a private boat this weekend. A young married couple, the owner of the boat who happens to be an underwater photographer, myself and two guys who were in their late teens. When we reached the dive site, one of the teens was very sea sick. He said he would take meds and sit the first dive out, and that left 5 of us.

The married couple had to be split because she was an experienced advanced open water while the husband was newly certified with buoyancy issues. He could not be as deep as her so I was asked how deep was I going, I said there is plenty to see within 60 feet so I would rather benefit from extended bottom time in the shallows because none of us were on nitrox. I got paired with the husband and his wife was paired up with this teenager.

We were diving a wall where the shelf was between 50 - 60 feet and then there was a drop. The husband and I were cruising on the shelf and he was having the same buoyancy issues that new divers have. Bump landing on the ground and then taking off to crash land again but he was learning.

His wife and her buddy were off the shelf cruising along the wall a little below us, but they did not have any bottom underneath them. My dive began well with the husband but this guys had such strong protective instinct for his wife that he was constantly looking off the shelf to see is she was there. Every time, he would lose sight of her, he would assume that she just dropped all the way down like he would if he was on that side, and then he would totally abandon me and swim off the shelf in search of her.

Since he did not have the same control and would start dropping off, she would sort of grab him to offer control and once stabilized, he would come back and join me and our dive would continue. After sometime this became a bit disruptive because I would turn around to do a buddy check and he would be shooting off of the shelf to look for his "missing wife."

Then we were half way through the dive and I turned around to do a buddy check and the guy was gone! Vanished! I looked for him on the shelf and could not find him. Then I went down the drop off and I could neither find him or his wife. I was thinking wtf? I was wondering how far back would I have lost him and is he now at the bottom? As I swam back tracing the wall.

A moment later, I ran into the three of them. His wife had "rescued" him and upon seeing that she is not dead, he was cool again. Since he could not part with her, I went up to them and brought my fingers together to signal "you two buddy up!" She gave me an okay sign and I took off with the teen as my buddy, leaving him to protect his wife, or for her to protect him, whichever way you want to look at it. The then dived together where he would be on the shelf while she would be off on the deep but he could SEE her.

Our dive went well but when we got back on the boat, he was stand offish towards me. In the beginning he was very loud and friendly but he started to give me this vibe that he did not like me anymore. I tried to break the ice but he would give short answers to shut off any further communication or start to talk to others so that him and I do not talk much.

I was wondering what exactly did I do wrong here? Was I a bad dive buddy to do this? Or should I have stuck with him?